Cursed
by jones2000
Summary: AU. Seven years have passed since all hell broke lose. Jo has got several successful gigs under her belt, and life is good. But what's going to happen when a Winchester comes back wanting her help on a case?
1. Jo

_"So what will you do, Sammy? Keep exchanging one brother for the other for all of eternity? Here's something for nothing: deal with the devil or not, Dean would have ended up down below eventually anyway."_

She woke up. Several cars whooshed past the curb, horns blaring. One guy stuck his head out the window and bellowed some profanity at her that was lost in the flow of traffic.

"Bite me, numbnuts." She growled, before reaching into her pocket for her phone. There were three messages left on her voicemail.

_'Hey, JB. Listen, I covered for you at the bar today. Told Dennis you were off sick, and um… JB, you know I love you like my own sister, but you can't keep running out on your responsibilities. I know you've had it awful hard lately with your Mom and all, but you gotta get yourself some staying power. What I mean is… if you duck out of work again, I ain't bailing you out. Later.'_

_'JB, babe. Missed you today, sorry I didn't pick you up after work like I said I would. I'll make up for it and take you somewhere nice. How about that place downtown? I know you said it would be too expensive, but I think I can just make it. Love you.'_

The third message was a bit more cryptic.

_'Call me.'_

With the phone in one hand and the carkeys in the other, she got out and made a small show of walking around and kicking the dust of the curb. Finally, she dialled the number of the last caller.

"Hey."

"Hey." He replied.

"Missed your call."

"Yeah."

She remembered when she first met Decon Ridgeway. She fractured his jaw in a pub in LA.

"I've got it. Come around tonight."

"Cool." Jo grinned. "I'll bring the popcorn." She snapped her phone shut. Time was a'wastin'.

* * *

No matter how long Jo worked this job, it always came as a surprise to her exactly how many empty, derelict warehouses there were in America. That and the fact that so many of these nasties preferred these empty, derelict warehouses. 

She reached the top of the gate and dropped to the ground. Deacon's boots hit the pavement behind her. "You know, one day we'll get a demon who lives in Penthouse at the Bahamas. That'll be a nice change."

Jo glanced at him. In the half-light she could see the sparkle of his revolver and the glint in his red hair. "You know, you should really get a dye job or something for that mop. It's like a beacon, Deacon."

"Ho ho, she's making bad jokes. Feeling better, JB?"

JB. So much scarier than Jo. How many creatures would shudder at the name Joanna Beth on a hunter? The old Jo had been left by the side of the highway, along with the rest of her old life.

"Let's roll." She said.

Deacon cut through the chains on the doors, slipping the wire cutters into the waistband of his jeans.

Jo cocked her pistol, torch in the other hand. She nodded and Deacon's foot flashed out. The doors clanged open.

The place had once been an old meatworks, an abattoir. Giant meat hooks still hung from the ceiling. Some were covered in dust and rust and dried blood, but there were others that seemed to be dripping something onto the cement floor.

Jo nudged Deacon. "Reckon those are still used?"

He sniffed the air. "Certainly smells a bit rank. Apparently, it stores its victims up to months at a time."

"And makes them like itself?"

"Sometimes it just… plays with them."

She stared at him. "I really need to brush up on my demons, don't I?"

"Technically, its more of a parasitical life form that latches onto a woman's psyche. That's why you should have let me handle this one."

"Bull."

"JB-"

"Is there anyone there? Help me!"

Deacon's hand curled around the handle of a huge door set into the wall. It opened grudgingly with the screeching of metallic hinges. "Meat locker." He said softly. She gave him a look. "My granddad was a butcher." He explained.

"Who's there?" The girl was hysterical to the point of screaming.

"I'm JB." Jo called. "Don't worry, me and my friend are gonna get you out."

Deacon gave her a sour look. "So much for 'it doesn't know we're coming'."

"What was I supposed to do? There isn't actually a guide for this crap." She hissed back.

"JB, go away. Stay away! He'll eat you alive!"

Deacon and Jo glanced at each other, startled. He?

Something slowly crossed the floor in front of them with wide, gaiting steps. Deacon peered through a grill to watch it as it passed. With each step there were clicks of cloven hooves upon the ground.

Jo switched off her torch. All they could see was a silhouette of the creature, but the silhouette was just as shocking. Whatever it was had a massive bull's head with dangerously sharp horns, a man's torso and knees that bent the wrong way.

"That's not a Valkyrie."

"No."

And it looked at them then. Really looked at them, like it was seeing through the strewn equipment right to the intruders in its lair. As they watched, it threw back its head and bellowed its war cry.

"FEAR THE MINOTAUR!"

* * *

"Oh, you have _so _got to be kidding me!" Jo cried, jumping from her hiding place. Deacon dropped to his stomach and rolled behind an old stainless steel workbench, splitting and minimising the target.

"How the _hell _do you kill a minotaur?!"

"I know this one, learnt it in eighth grade history… According to Greek mythology, Prince Theseus killed the Minotaur by cutting off its head with a broadsword."

"I don't suppose you happen to have a broadsword on you?" Deacon was silent. "I thought not."

The minotaur roared, lowered its head and charged.

"Now." Jo said testily. They fired. Deacon repeatedly popped bullets into the barrel. Jo snapped another clip into the chamber. The minotaur slowly stumbled to a stop. Jo opened her mouth to make an exclamation of triumph.

The creature shook its head. Empty shells cascaded around its shoulders. Spinning on a hoof, snorting, it charged the larger attacking mass, which happened to be Deacon. He darted aside and threw up his revolver. It clashed with horns in a spray of sparks. "Deacon!"

"Get the girl!" He ordered.

She sprang past him, out of the meat locker. "I'll be back."

"Sure." He grunted.

She passed long stretches of counters as she walked into the wide expanse of warehouse. More wickedly curved hooks hung from the ceiling. "Are you there?" She called, half not expecting a reply.

"Here." It was no more than a whisper. Jo opened another freezer door, smaller this time, and ventured in. "Hello?" She held the torch over her head. Finally she spotted something at the far end, slowly swinging from side to side. A girl.

But she was dead. And had been for some time.

It was then Jo realised that they'd been duped. The true enemy was not out there grappling with Deacon; it was in here with her. "What do you want?"

"Why do you chase us? Why do you always chase us?" Jo spun. There was a woman standing behind her, one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Dark haired and dark skinned, bare-footed under a sheer blue robe.

"Valkyrie." Jo breathed.

"Why can't you ever leave us alone? We haven't done anything to you. Why can't your kind leave us be?" And then it dropped.

"All those dead people… they've been hunters."

"You should have left us alone. They should have all left us alone!" And then her beautiful face distorted into something hideous and otherworldly. "They should have minded their own business!"

_'An iron round to the heart, and iron round to the heart,' _Jo kept repeating the mantra to herself as the creature rounded on her. "I am a Valkyrie, Joanna Beth Harvelle. My first duty is to recruit the strongest for the coming of Ragnarok."

"What?"

"The apocalypse." She reached out a hand to her. Jo was compelled to touch the fine skin, grasp the graceful fingers. She was _so beautiful. _"You think it is over. It has hardly begun."

Then Deacon fired, breaking the enchantment around her. The Valkyrie's hand fell limp and her urethral form sank gracefully to the ground.

Jo gasped, it was as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over her head. "What the hell did you do that for?"

Deacon stood wavering it the doorway. He was grasping his backup colt in one hand and an old, stained meat cleaver in the other. The front of his shirt was torn open and there was blood on his chest.

"Well, excuse me from stopping you from going to happy land." He snarled.

Jo stared at him coldly. "I _was_ getting information from her."

"By pretending you were high? Nice use of your skills, Scully." He staggered and lent again a workbench. Jo's annoyance evaporated in a second as she told him to sit.

Looking up over his head she stared out into the factory. It was suddenly very quiet. She lanced back down at him. "Mulder, tell me that you didn't cut a minotaur's head off with a carving knife just then."

"Fine. 'I didn't cut a minotaur's head off with a carving knife just then'."

"Geek."

"Loser."

Jo began to pace back and forth, arms crossed. "She said she wasn't here to hurt us, and she only killed those people because they came trying to hunt her. She said that she was here to gather recruits for an army-"

"Sounds like an eerily familiar concept." Deacon grumbled. Jo ignored him, though the remark stung.

"-For the coming of Ragnarok."

"'The battle at the end of the world'. Also known as the 'fate of the gods'."

She shrugged. "It's all Greek to me."

"Oh, that's bad, that's really bad. You know, Valkyries and Ragnarok are actually Norse legends, not Greek." He carefully placed the cleaver on the bench and wiped the handle with his jacket sleeve. "I popped a lot of shells back there. We better go pick 'em up before some jumped-up junior PC decides he can hit the big time."

"Don't you want your own FBI squad?"

"Bite me."

Jo drove them back to the hotel Deacon was staying at. She kept imagining how the police, FBI, CIA, NSA and anyone else they called in would handle the case of the robed nymph and the decapitated bull-man. Each scenario ran through her mind, each one more ludicrous than the last.

Who would look for someone that had killed two mythological beasts? And what would, could, they possibly look for? The tension in her shoulders eased as she realised that for the moment they were safe.

"Good thing we really don't have Mulder and Scully on the case." She said softly.


	2. Sam

The morning light ran exploratory fingers around the gaps in the curtains, probing into the darkened room. Jo lay there watching the sun draw patterns on the wall before remembering that she didn't have curtains.

She sat up, and stared up at Deacon, who was sitting against the headboard in his pyjama pants. "Morning, sweetheart."

She straightened up, and realised she was still fully clothed, which was a good sign. While Deacon was in the shower, she had curled up at the foot of his bed like a cat to watch television. She couldn't remember anything after that.

"You fell asleep." Deacon said to her unspoken question. "Unfortunately. Go see that boyfriend of yours. He's been ringing me all morning to find out if I'd seen you."

"_Please_ tell me you said no."

"No, I said I'd taken you home for a quick shag. It's insulting how stupid you seem to think I am."

"You're right, sorry." Jo hung her head. He was anything but stupid. He was the first one to jump to conclusions, but those conclusions were usually right. And had saved her a few times. She jumped up. "I'll use the shower then give Rupert a call."

"_Rupert? _You're seriously dating a guy called _Rupert?"_

"Watch it, _Deacon." _

Jo gave Rupert a call while Deacon was eating a breakfast of cold cereal. _"JB, I was so worried about you when you never called me." _

Right. Like my Mom, if I haven't called within a given time, automatically assume that I've wrapped myself around a tree. Or possibly eaten by demons.

"Sorry, baby. Got held up on the way home from work. Bunked at a friend's place."

_"Is that that Deacon Ridgeway? He swore he hadn't seen you at all in the past week." _

Jealous-possessive, Rebecca had said. Stay away from those types; they'll destroy your social life. Not that she had much anyway.

"Nah, one of the girls from work."

_"What about work anyway? You know I'd love to pick you up, but I can't get away today. I'll made reservations as Hardys for tonight to make up for not being around as much as I used to. Pick you up at seven?"_

Overcompensating a minor infraction with a grossly extravagant gesture. Send up the flares and release the armada, Deacon had noted when Jo had first mentioned her suspicions of infidelity to him.

"I'll see if I can get away. The bar's pretty full up."

_"Call me if you can." _

If he really wants to spend time with you, he'll remember when you have your day off; Mom had said when she was old enough to start dating seriously.

_'I know what you're up to, fungus face.' _It would have been good to say it, though she was controlled enough to keep emotions to herself by now. Besides, she wanted to see his reaction. _'_ _I hardly want to be your piece of skirt.' _

Instead she breathed deeply. "I'll see you later then, Shnookums."

Deacon choked, almost bringing milk up through his nose. _"Who was that?" _

"My friend's cat. Awful hairballs. The poor thing is allergic to its own fur."

_"Ah. See you, then." _

"Bye."

"_Shnookums?" _Deacon was still laughing. Jo glanced at him sitting cross-legged on the counter in his paisley pyjama bottoms, balancing an overfull bowl on his knee and she couldn't help it. She began laughing too.

* * *

Later that day, Jo went to the library. While there, though, she ran into another familiar face. 

Jo unfortunately had a near-death run in with this woman the first day she hit town. Unbeknown to her at the time, the new girl had been treading on the top dog's territory, and the head bitch was keen to make sure that Jo knew the ground rules. Not all hunters played nice, and it was better to remember that.

"New kid."

Carmen Lorenzo, tall and sultry and seductive. But you talked to her and she was cold. Not a cold you could feel, but stillness, a detachment. Like part of her had died a long time ago. And it made Jo think, _Is that what I'm going to be in ten years? Five? _

She'd only ever seen a handful of old hunters. Was that why? Did you end up seeing so much death and destruction that you just didn't care anymore? Until you were empty?

And then she had to stop thinking about it because the hypothesising was making her head hurt.

"New girl, you alright?"

Jo blinked. She must have been staring. "Sorry. Zoned out for a minute, huh?"

"From what I hear, you got your reasons to, honey." Carmen sat down opposite her, crossing her arms and legs. She wore a cropped jacket and leather pants that Jo would have killed to get the figure to pull off.

"How did you know that?" She said sharply. Carmen narrowed her eyes at her tone.

"You have your sources, I have mine." She lent forward to catch Jo's glare. Her eyes were slate grey with a flick of blue. "You play the same game I do, only differently. We are still on the same side."

"What do you want with me?" Jo asked. Behind them the librarian made shushing sounds and a group of teenage boys had turned to watch the intense conversation between the women with grins on their faces.

A muscle in Carmen's cheek twitched. "Here." Between her fingers hung a scrap of napkin from some shoddy roadhouse diner. Jo frowned, feeling a little let down. "Take it." Carmen hissed, pressing the paper into Jo's hand. As Jo tried to think of something, anything, to say, the other woman rose and simply walked out. As if she had fulfilled her duty to the world.

_The Queen is dead, God save the Queen. _Jo looked down at the scrunched-up paper, one eyebrow raised quizzically. Slowly she unfolded the napkin and smoothed it across the table she was sitting at.

One word was printed neatly in the centre of the napkin, followed by a set of initials.

_Outside. SW. _

Jo looked up, turning in her seat to peer out the long rows of plane glass windows into the sunlight. It took her a moment to spot the one person standing still among the throng of people milling about outside.

He wasn't looking at her, but at the café opposite. Alone once more, he was leaning against the side of the sleek black car, waiting.

Jo crumpled the note and slapped several books into her bag.

It was bright outside. It was harder to believe in the daylight that so many shadows could exist. Each face she walked past was the visage of a possible enemy.

Although he had his back to her, Jo was certain he was watching her every step. Finally he turned to meet her as she also lent casually against the Impala.

"Hey, Jo."

"Yo. How're tricks, Sam?"

_

* * *

_

_Stay away from Sam Winchester. _

"You've cut your hair. It looks funny." Be fair, what else was she supposed to say?

Sam grinned, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Nice to see you too." He was thinner then when she last saw him, but he looked tougher too.

"Sam, what do you want?"

_I hear he went crazy when he couldn't save his brother. _

"I saw you around, and I'd thought I'd catch up with a familiar face." He paused.

"Since most of the other familiar faces are either evil or dead?" Jo put in helpfully.

"Something like that." There was an awkward pause. "The grapevine says you went on a hunt the other night with one of the other locals."

"Well, he's not really a local. He's sort of hanging around until his sister sorts out some personal problems. He's a good hunter. Very grounded. You'd like him." Jo licked her lips. "Sam, what do you want?"

_He doesn't care whether he lives or dies anymore. _

Sam looked down at his shoes. "I want… I want some pie."

Jo grinned. "You better be buying."

* * *

_Watch out for Sam Winchester. He'll take you down with him. _

Jo stared into the froth on her girly drink. Sometimes she thought that Sam barely knew her. "You do know what people say about you." It wasn't a question.

"People will believe what they want to believe." It wasn't an answer, but it would have to do. "Hunters especially." _Including you and me, _she expected him to add. Instead he just stared down into his beer with that long face and those sad puppy eyes that always seemed to get him what he wanted.

Jo's eyes narrowed as she peered at him over the top of her glass. "Are you going to talk or do I have to break out the thumbscrews?" She asked. "Dude, you've been all weird ever since…" She trailed off.

"You can talk about it. He was your friend too." Jo's face twisted in a wry expression.

"A friend would have been there to help get him out of trouble." She said flatly. "I wasn't."

"He didn't want to worry anyone else."

"Ha! The guy makes a deal with the Devil and expects us common folk not to worry? Way to take one for the team, Dean!"

Sam laughed then. "I can see why he liked you. Alright, Jo, let's talk business."

He said he had been out on the south coast, following the case of the missing hunters. Jo remembered that she had wanted to investigate it herself, but her responsibilities in this sucky little place made it all but impossible.

Around nine months ago the first hunter disappeared. All Sam knew was his name. Fletcher Gable. No friends, no family. Jo frowned when she heard Gable's name; she was certain that she had heard it somewhere before, in her murky past.

Anyway, poor Gable happened to have something another hunter had wanted when he died, so this hunter (no names mentioned for fear of incriminating one of their own) got together his gang and staged a bounty hunt, with the winner getting to keep Gable's bloodstained jacket (a little macabre for Jo's tastes, but some hunters had the whole dom/sub thing coming on).

Hunters from all over poured into Gable's little hometown, but from then on the town was completely silent. Nothing else happened.

"What did you do?"

Sam broke into the house owned by Fletcher Gable when the police were still getting set up. All the evidence would still be fresh. And there, on the kitchen floor, Gable had tried to scrawl a set of coordinates before he was taken wherever. Unfortunately the pen had been snatched from him and in another hand, Sam had found something else.

He handed her his phone. There on the small LCD screen was a photo. Jo could see where this Gable began and whatever else it was had finished. It must have been a word, but it was distorted and stretched out of all recognition.

"Hey-?"

"Pretend you're looking at a Magic Eye."

"Not helpful, Sam." She looked again. Held the phone sideways and twisted it upwards. As the word emerged she swallowed, and a feeling of dread dropped into her stomach. "Ragnarok."

"Ragnarok." Sam nodded. "The prophesised end of all things."

"Call me a liar, but didn't we do that part already?"

"That's what I thought." But then he showed her other photos. The one he'd taken of Norah Frost's kitchen cupboard, the one of Max Townsend's bathroom tiles, the one of Simon Kirsh's lounge-room wall, and, most ironically, the one scratched into the woodwork of a stake belonging to Hope Hunter.

_Ragnarok. _

"And the catch-phrase of the day is…" Jo muttered. "Theories, Haley Joel?"

A ghost of a grin flittered across his face. It had been such a long time since anyone had called him that. "We have option 1) someone is harvesting hunters to use them for some nefarious reason, and option 2) the end of the world is nigh."

"'The meek shall inherit the earth' and all that stuff? Odin comes down in his flaming chariot and smites those who need to he smited?"

"All religions and races have their own theories about the end of the world. If you look closely and read between the lines you'll find that they're awfully similar. Someone more enterprising than myself may even go as far to say that they're all rehashes of the same story."

"Or facts. If you believe in that."

Sam nodded. Jo sighed. "Just so you know, I'm going to have to call Deacon, just to let him know that our little tussle the other night wasn't a one-off."

"Deacon is-?"

"My partner." At Sam's slightly incredulous look, Jo quickly amended herself. "Not _that _sort of partner. He's my hunting partner."

"Ah."

"Hunting seems to work better if you have someone at your back."

"Yes."

"And it's lonely talking to yourself."

"Mmm."

Jo shook her head. "And that's why you're here. You want a moving buddy for this little crusade of yours against the forces of Ragnarok."

Sam lent forward and caught her eye, much like Carmen Lorenzo had earlier at the library. "Are you in?"

_Never make a deal with Sam Winchester. It'll get you killed. _

Jo held out her hand. Sam reached across the table and grasped it in his much larger one. "I'm in."


	3. Dean

Getting sacked from her barmaid job was easier than expected. She simply didn't turn up the next day.

She'd left a message on her friend Rebecca's machine. _'Hey, Bec, it's JB. You can stop covering for me; I'm leaving town. No, you can't change my mind. No, it's not about anything here. Yes, I suppose it's got stuff to do with my Mom. Anyway, might catch you up later. Keep it real, girl.'_

There was no remorse when she texted Rupert either. _Ur dumped._ That was, in effect, probably the most heartless thing she had ever done, excluding the time she hit that bird with her slingshot when she was ten.

Of all the people Sam could have gone to for help, he chose to come after her. Jo felt a sort of pride about that. She was good, but she certainly wasn't the best. Though she could flirt her way out of almost any place.

Though another part asked _why? _When the Winchesters Squared were still in operation, the pair of them point-blank refused to let her sit in on any of their seat-of-the-pants adventures, being just a little girl. What had changed?

Apart from the obvious. Death and seven years can change a lot, of course. Trust a Winchester to come blowing back her way just as she'd almost forgotten.

Talking to Deacon was harder. "You shouldn't do it." He said softly. His voice always seemed to get smooth and silky whenever he was becoming particularly angry. "Sam Winchester isn't safe."

"I knew him. I mean - I know him."

"Then you know what he's capable of. Or you don't know what he's capable of. If he weren't a hunter, he'd be dead by now. Like all the other children."

"Meaning what? That you would have hunted him too?" Jo replied coolly. "Is that really what happened to all the psychics? Your lot killed them?"

"My lot is also your lot." Deacon snarled. "They were a danger to everyone around them."

"So are we!" Jo threw up her hands. "Every time we leave our homes there is a danger that they'll be something lurking in the streets ready to attack us and any other poor bastard that gets in the way. Anyway, how would you know anything about Sam except what you hear on the grapevine?"

"He killed my uncle. Steve Wandell. I was still a kid then. He killed Steve in cold blood. They were both there, Sam and that Dean. My dad read me the riot act and went off to track them down. I never saw him again either." His reply was frosty.

Jo's mouth suddenly went dry. "Oh."

"Oh." He agreed. "You know, it used to be the black dog that was a bad omen if you saw it. Now, it's that damn car. Trust me, each time that thing rolls through a town, people die."

"Impala." Jo muttered. "It's the Impala, not 'thing' or 'car'." She had no idea why she was suddenly feeling so defensive about the Impala. Maybe it was because it had always been treated like a family member. Maybe because it had never failed when they needed it. Maybe because the last thing Dean said that she could remember was _'Look after my baby.'_

"'Thing', 'car', 'vehicle', 'bus', whatever. You get in that thing with him there's a very good chance that it'll be the last time."

"Every day we get out of bed it could be the last time." She said softly. "I'm sorry, Deacon. I'll see you around, 'kay?"

But Deacon was already walking away.

* * *

It was dark where he crouched, and cold. Whoever said Hell was all fire and brimstone deserved a good kick up the arse. _Your punishment will be that your Hell shall be that of your own creation. It will be how you believe you deserve to suffer._

That was why it was so harsh, so cruel, and why he begged them to let him go mad. They tortured him, mind and soul. _This is for my brother. This is for my father. This is for my sister. This is for my mother. You killed them, ripped them apart and watched them burn._

At times he though he saw glimpses of other people, other creatures as their hells rubbed up against his own, but they were gone before he could reach a claw-like hand out to them. He was so alone._ Always alone. Forever. This is for all those who perished under your hand. You will remember how you slaughtered them. You will suffer like they all did. Suffer alone, like you always did._

Then one day he heard a voice. It took him a moment to realise that it was he that was being addressed.

"Hello." He could still not see anything, even after all this time existing in the darkness. But after a while he spotted two pinpoints of green fire glowing in the shadows. As they blinked on and off, he surmised that they were the eyes of whoever was watching him.

"Can you speak?"

Who was it? What was it? The twin fires moved as the person approached. Panic rose in him and he propelled himself backwards, his back against the wall. He feared it. He feared what it would do to him. The creatures that came to him each had a score to settle. Each of them had a history, and came to take what they were due. Taking, but not taking enough to extinguish him.

There was a chuckle from Green Eye. "Once upon a time I would have given a lot to see you cringing at my feet as you are." A pretty little sigh. "But now I find it is just sad. You have broken too easily to be of any amusement, wallowing in your self-pity and self-hate. I watched you for a long time, you and your little crusade. You were going to bring us all crumbling down. Now you cower in the shadows, no more than a shell of what you once were. Tell me, can you speak?"

He opened his mouth. Green Eye waited expectantly. "M-my m-mother told me that… if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all." He was scared, but the one scrap of dignity he had left he brandished before himself like a shield. They would never see how much they hurt him. He wouldn't allow them to see how much they hurt him. _This if for my father._

Green Eye regarded him curiously for a moment before throwing back it's head and laughing. "So. The person we all know and love is still in that hollowed-out bag of bones somewhere. How good to know. How very good." There was a certain satisfaction in the voice, almost relief. It sent chills down his spine to hear it. This demon wanted him relatively intact for something. Already he didn't like the sound of it.

"What… do you want?" His voice was still rusty from all the time it spent unused. His hands searched the ground for something, anything he could use as a weapon. His long-buried instincts were whispering to him that this person, creature, fugly could not be trusted. _This is for my brother._

Green Eye narrowed its eyes. "I have a job for you."

"I won't be your puppet." He spat, his voice sounding weaker than he would have liked. He was strong. He had to be strong. He was a Winchester, and they would never break him.

"That is where you are wrong. You have no choice." There was a smug edge to its voice and he shrank back as far as he could. This time there was no escape. They really had him this time.

"No."

"You will. Work for Mother and you will be rewarded for it. Work _against _Mother and your pitiful existence will be made absolutely _excruciating. _I promise you." A clawed talon arched out of the darkness and stopped just before him, palm up. "Are you willing to make a deal for their lives? Will you become the overseer of Mother's legions and obey her every word?"

"What do you want?"

"The Crossroads whelp offered you to us in exchange for her own continued existence. You surrendered your soul. Now you must surrender your humanity. Will you sacrifice that much? Do you dare to skirt that close to becoming the creature you most despise? Do you dare to join us, Dean?"

"Dare." And they shook on it.

****

* * *

After all this time the ash is still thick on the ground. She thought the wind and the rain would have carried the worst of it away by now. 

Sam got out of the Impala, dark glasses shielding his eyes. "I have to make a call." He muttered. "Don't wander far."

Jo walked around the Impala. The wind blew his voice back to her. _'Is Carmen Lorenzo there?' _She began to walk away as Sam glanced after her; she had no desire to hear what Sam was discussing with the wicked bitch of the west.

The scorched patch of ground where the Roadhouse had once stood stretched before Jo like a wound. She hadn't found out about the destruction of her childhood home until all those people had died seven years ago.

The ash was still thick on the ground.

She thought of Ash, the little hillbilly that had blown in from Boston. She thought of her mother. Of Gordon Walker, Dean Winchester, and many others she could have named that she had lost in one way or another.

Jo looked up from the ash toward the sad, bare skeleton of the only place she every truly felt like she'd belonged. She would have given anything to go back in time right then and run through the front door into her father's arms.

All gone now.

Someone had placed a bunch of flowers by the foot of the doorway. It saddened Jo that to someone this was a place of pilgrimage, a monument that deserved respect. She could just about imagine Dad yelling at them to get the hell off his stoop.

She knelt down to touch the wilted, crumbling petals. _Why did you bring me here, Sam? _

The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up. Someone was watching her, and doing a very good job of keeping quiet. She reached for her boot. Jo could feel it getting closer, and as soon as she knew it was right behind her, she spun on her heel, knife flung out wide.

The blade cut deeply into the chest of the creature. Red blood spurted. Jo gasped, almost dropping her knife.

It looked human. A male. His skin was filthy and he smelled strongly of sulphur. The creature snarled. Jo snarled back. "Christo."

It flinched. As she watched, it shook its head, dispelling the word like so much water. "Sam." As it straightened, it dove at her again. Jo slit open its forearm.

It wasn't even slowing down. It came again and again, driving her against the one remaining wall of the Roadhouse. "Sam!" She yelled, plunging the blade again and again.

There was a thunk as the knife lodged against bone. The handle was yanked from her hand as the demon paused in its attack and peered at its hand curiously. Jo's knife stuck up from between the second and third knuckle.

"SAM!"

BLAM! And he was finally there, shotgun in hand. The demon hissed; his shoulder was oozing dark blood and beginning to smoke. She spotted the white salt crystals on its skin.

Sam reloaded. "Come and get it, you son of a bitch."

The creature decided it was finished with Jo and rounded on Sam. Seemingly aware that Sam was waiting for it to charge him, it stood and stared up at him before pulling the knife slowly from his hand. He wiped his hand across his bare chest, leaving a sticky stain.

"Take your best shot." He croaked. "I _dare _you."

The voice was rusted and harsh, yet still horribly and awfully familiar.

"Dean." Jo whispered.

"Go on and kill me, little brother. I died once because of you, what's a second time going to matter?"

His voice was so cold, so… inhuman.

Jo slowly got to her feet, felling unusually at ease.

"Stay down." Sam ordered.

"But it's Dean."

"No it's not." Sam snapped. "Dean's dead!"

DEAN'S DEAD. The words echoed in her head and whatever spell was holding her shattered around her. Demon-Dean's eyes widened in surprise as Jo launched herself at his back and snatched the knife from his grasp. Latching onto his shoulders, blade tight to the demon's throat, she hauled him into Sam's firing line.

"NOW!" Jo screamed.

Sam fired.

Jo felt fragments of the shot thump into Demon-Dean's back through his chest. She released him and hit the ground as the demon began to hunch over. Face contorted, his eyes began to blacken.

Throwing his head back to the sky, he let out a scream of pure anguish.

And then he was gone.

Literally in a puff of smoke.


	4. Stanford

"You miserable, irresponsible, SON OF A BITCH."

"Jo-"

"You never needed a partner, you wanted some convenient bait." She accused, silently cursing herself for not seeing through another Winchester plot.

"Jo, you know I would have never unwillingly put you in danger-"

And that was when she hit him. Not a slap and not particularly hard, but because he wasn't expecting it, he was sent reeling backwards one or two steps. Sam raised a hand to his cheek. "You hit me."

Jo looked down at he balled fists and back up to his face. A ghost of a grin flitted over he face. "I did, didn't I?" Her expression turned serious. "Tell me why. Just tell me why."

_Why bring her here? Why chose her? What is he hunting? Why is he hunting it? Why did he call another hunter? How did he know that thing would be here? How can Dean be here? Why is he a demon?_

All in all, _what the hell was going on?!_

Jo's knife was sitting on the hood of the Impala, where she had carefully placed it before tearing strips off Sam. The blood of Demon-Dean still glinted on the blade.

Sam was silent.

"I might be more of a joy to be around if I actually knew what we're going up against, since you're stuck with me now."

Ragnarok. The battle at the end of the world.

"Get in the car."

"Sam-"

"Get in the car. Please."

Both of them sat silently in the Impala, which suddenly seemed too large and cold.

"Three months." Sam said. "Three months into the Fletcher Gable case and I was going nowhere. No matter what I did, I couldn't track the missing hunters. There was always that one word and nothing else, and whatever partial coordinates had been left could have been from several dozen areas across America. And there's only one of me."

Jo looked out the window. Sam turned the key in the ignition before stomping the clutch and manhandling the gearstick. His brother would have flayed him alive. As the Roadhouse faded slowly into the distance, he continued to speak.

"My last bust… went wrong. The demon jumped from host to host like a flea. By the time I finished one devil's trap, the demon was in somebody else."

"Where were you?"

"Casualty. In South Boston."

"_Lots _of bodies."

"_Lots _of bodies." Sam agreed. "Whatever, it was being controlled within the psychiatric unit. Whenever I got close it attacked." He sighed.

The Impala flashed past a welcome sign for Plesantvale. _Welcome to hell_ was scrawled across the billboard in thick black marker.

"He was in maximum security for the criminally insane." Sam carefully siphoned all emotion from his voice. "Sitting in a corner muttering to himself. He looked so haunted. I thought…well, it doesn't matter what I thought."

"A miracle." Jo said softly.

"At first I thought I could bring him back, you know? But I _didn't want to see _that he was the one controlling the demon. All along, he was playing me, and he knew exactly how. Jo, I let him out. Let IT out."

"Sam-"

"I gotta keep going forward. Gotta find the hunters. Gotta solve this Ragnarok thing. If I start thinking that there's a demon in Dean's body, I'll start thinking that there might be a chance to bring him back. And if I do I'll just collapse. I'm not kidding, I'll just fold up and-"

"I know."

"I'm sorry. But you knew each other, and because of that _it_ knew you were a threat. And while you were taking it on I could come around and take a clear shot at it."

"That's one hell of a gamble, Sam."

He sniffed. "It's a demon, Jo."

"I know." She said again. "But just for a moment it felt so real. He was there, alive, and I couldn't do anything. Like my instincts had been squashed. Part of me knew it was too good to be true, but it was like I'd believe anything. Almost like-"

"Some sort of spell?"

"Yeah, some sort of spell."

He stared resolutely forward. "Not good."

"You think the demon's wrapped up in this?"

"A hundred percent certain. Well, ninety-eight percent. Ninety percent of the hunters vanished without any signs of a struggle. Showing that they might have been sort of charmed away. The last ten percent turned out to be old school slayers with basic psychic training to resist mental torture."

"Cool." Jo said without thinking.

Sam glanced at her. "You know, you're a lot like him."

"What, the demon?"

"No, Dean."

"Ah, you mean I'm brave and loyal and true?"

"More like semi-suicidal, stubborn and cocky to the point of insolence."

Jo crossed her arms and lent back into the passenger's seat. "Jerk." She waved a threatening finger at him. "You reply to that and you're _so _going down."

Sam grinned.

* * *

It was the same the world over. Littered campus, students almost half your age trying to pick you up, sleazy head teachers and state-of-the-art faculties that always seemed sub-standard. 

"We hope you will enjoy your tenure here, Miss Devlin." Charlotte Stewart, assistant to the accommodation manager smiled as Grace Devlin dropped her bags by the door. Finally, someone had come to fill the vacancy left by Mister Lawson's sudden departure.

"I'm sure I will." Grace said.

"Your office is right next to mine, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me."

"Sure."

* * *

The key turned in the lock and the door opened. The girl stepped into the room, slammed the door and armed the alarm before flopping on the lounge and grabbing the remote. 

CSI: Miami was on. She watched it until the plot became too convoluted before switching it over to the Sunday Night Movie.

_"But I love you!" _

_"No. You were only ever using me." _

_"But-" _

Something crashed to the floor in the kitchen.

_'Probably Louise's cat', _she dismissed. It took her a moment to remember that Louise didn't have a cat.

She crept to the door. Her boyfriend's baseball bat was still propped up against the phone table and she hefted it in her hands before jumping into the kitchen.

He was standing with his back to her.

"Who the hell are you?" She demanded. "Get out of my home!"

He turned.

She screamed.

_"Grace." _

* * *

By the next day everybody on campus knew that Belinda Evans had been murdered in her dorm, the door still locked and the alarm still active. Her roommate Louise Tucker had found her the following morning, and although most of her had been situated in the kitchen, poor Louise was still discovering pieces a week after. It had her on the verge of a nervous collapse. 

The Stanford staff bravely soldiered on in the face of disaster. Grace admired their endurance in their refusal to admit that anything was wrong, but pitied them for the same reason.

And so classes continued.

Grace Devlin packed her briefcase and watched as her students slowly fanned out of the lecture hall. Half of them were still being interviewed in relation to Belinda's death. She was about to leave herself when she noticed that one of the chairs was still filled.

Louise Tucker was a quiet, dark haired girl that never skipped a lecture by a rule. She had her heart set on becoming an archaeologist and would often challenge the opinions of the staff, leading many of them to think that she was too clever for her own good.

Grace sat next to her. "Louise?"

"She was pulled apart." Louise finally squawked. She looked like she hadn't had a night's sleep since her gruesome discovery. "Who could ever do that? Who could ever _want _to do that?"

"Some people seem to be born only able to hurt others." Grace said gently. "Have you seen a counsellor?"

"It made me feel worse."

"They tend to do that, yes. But sometimes talking to a person helps with the grieving process."

"But I am talking to someone. I'm talking to you." Grace raised an eyebrow in surprise. When she was a student at home in Brisbane, she wouldn't have trusted her teachers as far as she could comfortably spit a rat. "It was like an animal… You must think I'm crazy."

"No. But a do think you should get away for a while. Stay with friends until all this has blown over."

"I'll think you'll be lucky if you ever see me again." Louise said gravely. "Linda was my best friend."

* * *

Sam was sitting alone, staring out the window. Jo noticed that he'd been doing that a lot lately since the run-in with the demon. He'd withdrawn into himself a little more, shut a bit more of himself off from the world. 

_He doesn't want to hurt anymore. _She pondered him as she stood by the bar waiting for their drinks. The gangly and slightly awkward kid she knew when she was younger had morphed into this brooding, haunted hunter. And once again it made her wonder how long before she began to change, from Jo Harvelle of Nebraska into someone else. Someone darker…

"Hey baby. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Jo looked him up and down through her lashes. Get a few into some guys… "Just standing here waiting for you to walk into my life." She chirped cheerfully. The barkeep slid a couple of cold ones down the bar. "And now you can walk back out again."

She breezed past him and slapped the beer down in front of Sam, breaking him from his trance. He glanced up at her and wrinkled his nose in a kinda cute way. "Got food?"

"Ordered some steak. Red meat."

"Carnivore."

"Thank you." She pulled out her chair and noticed that there was a folded newspaper underneath his large hand that she'd somehow missed when he pulled out the computer. "Hey, what you got there?"

Sam took a mouthful of drink and pushed it toward her. Jo smoothed the paper and scanned the surface. "Oh, the obituaries. Aren't you a hoot and a half," she murmured. Judging by the pen strokes, he had already searched the majority of deaths for any strange connections. "I thought we were looking for Rag-"

_Belinda Catherine Evans, 1990 to 2014. Tragically passed away on the Stanford University campus without warning on the 13 July._

"Stanford University? Wasn't that where-?"

"Where all this mess really started for me, yeah."

"I was going to say that that one was the university that started as a memorial for the dead headmaster's son, but your answer works too. What all started?"

He stared up at her, surprised. "I thought you would have known by now."

"Sorry for not invading your privacy in all the time we have known one another."

A ghost of a grin flitted across his face. "Yeah, I guess I'm just used to having someone around that knows everything about me even if I don't say anything. Sorry."

"Well, I'll try to be more nosy in the future." Jo glanced back down at the paper, her brow wrinkled. It looked to Sam as if she was waiting for some divine intervention and he grinned. "What started?"

"Where my hunting really began. Hunting and visions and chasing fuglys with my crazy brother. The whole Yellow-eyed Demon thing. It killed my girlfriend." And although it was a long time ago, pain still shone in his eyes.

Jo looked away. Her first real steady, a guy called Rick, had turned up again out of thin air two years before, and was killed on a hunt because she refused to blow off a gig with Deacon to back him up. Though you couldn't have really done anything to prevent it, the guilt still eats away. "So. Back to Stanford?"

"Back to 'could have been'." Sam agreed.

"Don't get it mixed up with 'is' and 'now'."

"Two steak and fries?" The busty waitress chirped, her eyes lingering on Sam. Jo grinned.

"Yes, ma'am. This boy's a little too scrawny for my liking."

He kicked her under the table.


	5. Professor Devlin

It was a long drive to California. Jo amused herself from Nebraska to the Silicone Valley by asking 'are we there yet?' on the dot at each half hour. She didn't mean to, but it was an instinctive thing she'd done since she was small and Dad would be forced to bundle up his girls in the middle of the night and move somewhere new. It was a way to deflect her own thoughts by only thinking as far ahead as the next rest stop.

Funnily enough Sam didn't seem to mind. Any company broke him out of his shell and forced him to once again become another person, unlike where his usual schedule consisted of _sleep, coffee, study, lunch, kill something, sleep._ And in the morning he'd wake up and do it all over again. In hindsight, it was much like his pre-law schedule… without the 'kill something' bit.

Jo reached for a folded section of paper sitting on the seat beside Sam's laptop bag.

"You've read it five times already. You won't change what it says, you know."

She gave him a dirty look and began to read anyway. Sam looked back to the road. He knew what it was on the paper. He had it almost memorised since he saw the title _'Macabre Killing at Stanford University'_, so much more gory and attention grabbing then Jess's _'Tragic Fire Claims Life.'_

Jess. Here he was, almost thirty years old, and Jessica Moore was still haunting him. He thought he could get away from it all, try to forget somewhat, but the dead kept coming back to try and claim his soul. _Stanford. It's coming to Stanford to kill her._

He was no longer one of the Demon's children, though his dreams were a constant reminder of what had been done to him. Since failing to protect Dean, he'd hit the ground running and hadn't stopped since. _You get in the way and it's going to kill you too. _

_They're going to catch you, and drag you screaming down into the pit. _He was a soldier without direction. Without someone to tell him to stop.

"STOP!" It was shouted in his ear, and a foot stomped painfully over his on the clutch and brake. Jo was almost sitting on his lap and wrested the steering wheel to the side, taking them off the main road. Sam blinked and looked into her face. Her cheeks were an angry red and her eyes glinted dangerously.

A four-wheel drive flashed past, the driver leaning on the horn and his passenger yelling out the window.

"What the hell happened?" She cried. "Are you trying to get us killed? Didn't you hear me calling?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry." He said simply. What else could he say? He still saw Stanford, and the girl. A dark shadow descended over her and she was gone. Jo noticed the glazed eyes and waxy quality of his skin.

"What was it?" She asked in a quiet voice.

"We have to get to Stanford. There's something evil on campus."

"From what I've seen, most frat boys are evil."

"Jo, take it seriously for once. A woman is going to die if we don't get there now."

"Right." She said, and got out of the car.

"Jo-?" Sam asked in surprise as she walked around the bonnet and stuck her head though the driver's window.

"Budge over, Allison Dubois. It's my time to drive the chariot." He slid over wordlessly and Jo got over into the driver's side. "And just maybe we won't bash into a tree," She muttered softly. Turning the key in the ignition, she gave a satisfied smile as the engine roared into life. "Oh, yeah."

* * *

Jo stared up at the building, with its archways and rolling green lawns. "So this is Stanford."

"This is Stanford." Sam said. He was looking nervous.

"What's up?"

"I hardly left here under pleasant circumstances."

"Mmm. I hear this is where Dean first went dark side."

"Say it a little louder." He frowned at her. "And for your information, that was a shape shifter."

"I only know what was in the papers at the time. Believe it or not, I wasn't avidly waiting for the next instalment in '_Sam & Dean's Excellent Adventure'._" She sniped back.

"Hey!"

Jo blew the hair out of her eyes and tossed the keys over to Sam. He hadn't seen much in his vision, but he'd told her the basics. _'She's got red hair.' _

_'Oh, good.' _Jo had replied, rolling her eyes. _'She won't be hard to find at all.'_ And then they'd arrived at the university. Redheads doing study group, redheads doing gym, redheads reading, redheads strolling across the lawn… She felt like taking him to one side and thumping him.

"Look." Sam pointed to a stout man wearing a paunch-concealing suit. "He must be the new dean."

"Great. Let's go introduce ourselves." Jo said sarcastically. Sam cocked an eyebrow at her.

"You know, that might actually not be a bad idea."

"Excuse me?"

But Sam was off, strolling across the lawn like he owned the place. Jo grumbled under her breath and followed his long strides across the grounds.

* * *

"And so you are interested in joining our student body, Miss Harvelle?" The dean looked her over suspiciously before waving them after him in a tour of the main complex.

Sam elbowed her in the ribs and Jo jerked back into wakefulness. "Oh, yes, Dean Harris. My… friend Tom here attended some years back and recommended it."

The dean eyed Sam and Sam forced himself to grin. The university had appointed a new man to the post. Dean Cole would have recognised him away and welcomed him with open arms, just before he gave himself and Jo a police escort off Stanford's property.

"What do you plan to major in, Miss Harvelle?" The question caught her off-guard. Never in a million years did she think that one day she would be stuck at college, choosing her subjects. But it was probably safer if Sam didn't tell anyone who he was.

"Ah-"

"JB was telling me that she's interested in pursuing History." Sam put in smoothly. It was the subject the dead girl had been studying. Jo nodded.

"Right."

"You're in luck. A position in that area has recently become available."

"You mean that one that belonged to the dead girl?" Jo asked. The look Sam gave her clearly said _You have no tact. _

The dean stiffened. "What-?"

"It's in the campus paper."

"I see. Well, don't let that dreadful business put you off. A very unfortunate accident." Sam and Jo exchanged glances. The dean opened a door to his right. "Perhaps speaking to one of our History professors will help you make up your mind." He motioned them to follow him inside.

"Professor Devlin?"

The woman looked up from the papers on the desk. The eyes behind the frames were angry at the disruption, though the rest of her face remained calm.

"Dean Harris." She acknowledged.

"Professor, this is Joanna Harvelle and her friend Tom." The professor rose to shake their hands. "Joanna is interested in studying history here. Convince her, we need the money."

She gave a patient smile at the dean's small joke, but her eyes brightened upon hearing that Jo wished to take her subject. "Are you now?" There was a distinctly un-American twang to her voice.

Professor Devlin's grip was firm and she and Sam smiled politely at one another as they shook hands. If she disapproved of the torn jeans and band tee shirts, she didn't show it.

And then he recognised her.

It was the girl from his vision.

* * *

Step two was to find the girl that discovered the body. When Sam asked around, all he got were grunts and blank stares, but after ten minutes talking to the boys on one of the debating teams, Jo came back with a name and address scribbled on her hand.

And so the two shot off to the other side of the campus.

"Louise Tucker, dorm 37. She's going back to Maryland tomorrow, if she hasn't already, so you better work your magic quick." Jo said as they reached the door. "Then you can get back to saving your red haired professor."

Sam knocked. "Louise Tucker?" No one moved beyond the door. Sam and Jo glanced at each other.

"Louise?"

Jo pulled out her wallet and extracted a credit card.

"You know that doesn't actually work."

"Ha! It's all a matter of leverage. Watch and learn."

And amazingly enough she unlocked the door in two minutes. "Give me that." Sam felt the card. "Jo, this is brass."

"Darn you, you've found out my secret. So I cheated." She opened the door and swiftly deactivated the alarm.

"How did you-?"

"The access codes were on the dean's desk. Fancy that, leaving them out in the open where any lowlife could see them."

Sam just gave her a look. "The place is suspiciously empty. I'd say she's already left."

"Mm." Jo pointed to stains in the carpet. "Looks like the other girl tried to escape."

Sam crouched down to inspect the spatter pattern. "I think I know what it is." He said. "Have you ever heard of a-?"

The lights flicked on.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

It was Professor Grace Devlin. She stood in the doorway looking completely shocked.

"Looking at possible accommodation?" Jo asked hopefully.

"At eleven thirty at night?" Professor Devlin took a step back.

"No, really – we were just – " Sam started. "Hold on, why are _you_ here?"

Professor Devlin drew herself up to her full height. "I, mister, am a Professor! Get off Stanford property before I call the cops!"

"Professor Devlin-"

But she was already walking away down the stairs. "First thing morning, I'm speaking to the dean. I don't know who you are, but I can sure as hell keep you out of this school, Joanna Harvelle. The same for you, Sam Winchester."

"I thought you didn't tell anyone your name!"

Sam stopped and stared after the strange woman marching indignantly back to her car. "I didn't."

Grace had reached the side of her car when the boy behind her crumpled to the ground. She looked back as the blonde girl knelt quickly and slapped him across the face.

She opened the door.

* * *

The darkness was crowding in, threatening to drown him. Sam peered out through a fog of shattered images.

"Stop her." He croaked to Jo. This time she gave no witty reply and broke into a run, reaching into her jacket. He saw it now more than ever. Grace Devlin was in danger.

The moon was blacked out as Jo began to close in on the professor. She instinctively stopped moving, as Sam and Grace did.

The creature was above them, floating on silent wings. It seemed to absorb the blackness of the night, making it loom large in their vision. It snapped it's long jaws, as if it could already taste their flesh.

Jo found she couldn't move. Fear coursed through her, pure, undiluted fear. She tried to forced her hand to reach for the knife, but her body refused to obey her commands.

And then it screeched, loud and long and earsplitting.

"Get in the car!" Sam screamed at her.

Jo finally moved. "Professor!"

Professor Devlin stood her ground, gazing up at death with a grim determination.

"Professor!"

"Grace!"

And as suddenly as the creature appeared, it vanished into smoky tendrils that wormed their way into the stonework.

Jo stared at the professor as Sam crunched up the courtyard beside her. The professor's head was bowed and she was swiftly muttering something she couldn't hear. She turned her head to look at them.

"Grace." Sam said in his most reasonable tone. "You have to come with us. Something is after you."

Professor Devlin turned her calm, unworried eyes on him. "I know."

Sam and Jo stared at the woman standing calmly among the chaos. Grace sank tiredly into the leather interior of her car.

"Grace-" Sam took a step toward her. She glanced up at him and their eyes locked. And he knew in that instant she was not all she seemed. The professor looked away.

"It won't hurt you." Professor Devlin said. "You aren't of any interest to it."

"How can you say that?" Jo exploded. "That girl is dead!"

The professor rounded on her. "Don't you think I know that? It was supposed to come after me! I wanted it to come after me!"

"That's why you came here." Sam said. "You were going to track it from the dorm room."

"All this time it's been chasing me." The professor hissed. "And now because it's seen you with me, it'll chase you too."

"But we can help-"

"No one can help me." Professor Devlin slammed the car door. "Leave me alone."


	6. Of the Devil

Sam snapped the book closed. "Nothing."

"What?"

"I've researched every recorded Devlin I could find."

"And?"

"Well, there was a Devlin in the 1850's that was jailed for trafficking potatoes, a Devlin was one of the last witches to be burnt at the stake in France, and a Thomas Devlin was committed to an asylum in '73 for seeing ghosts."

"That's interesting." Jo replied. "Hey, did you know the name Devlin was first spelt DEVLYN when it came out of Ireland? And it originally meant 'of the Devil'?" Sam glanced up at her. Jo had moved to one of the computer terminals and was reading with her head propped up on her hand.

"Where are you?"

"Google." She replied, clicking open another page. "Your professor has quite the following overseas."

"Grace?"

"Yeah. She's come out all the way from Australia. Graduated with a master's degree and worked at some place called the CSIRO for two years before she was sacked for some undisclosed reason. She's the only one of her family left. Oh, and she left her last posting in Oxford, England, because of a stalker."

"A stalker?"

"Some kid she taught." Another page opened. "Very '_I know what you did last summer' _stuff. Threatening letters, phone calls, and someone broke into her house, gutted her cat and wrote in blood all over the walls."

"What did it write?" Sam asked with a sinking feeling.

"'I have you'."

Sam shooed Jo away from the computer. After thinking a moment, he accessed the Australian Police Force homepage. He skipped _Australia's most wanted _and accessed the search engine. Typing in 'Grace Devlin', he hit the 'search archives' button.

One complete match. On the 'watch' list. He opened it.

'_Suspect in the death of Miss Emma Tilley, Brisbane. Miss Tilley had an angry confrontation with the suspect an hour before death. Suspect has an alibi.'_

That was in 1989, when she was fifteen. What followed was a list of unsolved cases directly or indirectly up until she left for England, ending with-

'_Suspect in the murder of her brother Patrick Devlin. Suspect has an alibi.'_

"Bad luck?" Jo offered, though neither of them really believed it.

"I don't think so." Sam said. He searched for Patrick Devlin. Once again a list of the dead with chance encounters with the suspect appeared. "No. Something else." He returned to Google.

"Devlin is Irish and means 'of the Devil'?"

"Yes."

And so after a moment's contemplation, Sam typed 'Irish family demons' into the search box.

"What-?"

"Something is happening to Grace. It happened to her brother before he died. There's too much coincidence." Both of them craned forward to see the first of the results.

"'- one of the only known family demons originates from Ireland. The banshee-' We're looking for a banshee? For real?"

"That or something that operates with the same MO. Haunt the one family until they die out."

"But it looks like our friendly little demon is tired of waiting and is speeding up the 'dying out' bit. A banshee?"

"Only Grace Devlin knows for sure, and after last night, she's not going to tell us anything."

* * *

"How do families get demons?"

Sam shrugged. "Bad luck? There is no lore on how it happens, it just happens. But I suppose if you had an ancestor powerful enough to bind a demon to do it's bidding…"

"If they didn't release the demon before they died, that branch of the family would be stuck with it until they all died." Jo finished.

"Wow. You handled that weird and awkward question reasonably well."

"You underestimate my familiarity with the world of weird and awkward. Remember when you-?" At Sam's expression, she stopped. "D'you think she's a hunter?"

Meaning Grace.

The pair of them were sitting on the lawn, watching the world of normal pass them by. A world they didn't belong to and probably never would again. "No." Jo answered herself. "Australia to Britain to America in three months? She's running. Out to protect her own skin." There was a bitter note of disapproval in her voice. Sam remembered that this was a girl who would never run from a fight. Perhaps to a fight…

"We don't know for sure." He said calmly. "All we know is that we've got to keep an eye on her."

"I thought she made it pretty obvious that she wants us to stay out of it."

"Since when did you ever do what you were told?"

* * *

Grace stared down at the papers on her desk, not really seeing them. She could feel it, lurking beneath the ground, near the shelves, behind the eyes of her students.

_I have you._

"Professor Devlin?"

She glanced up and gave an exasperated sigh. It was those two wild kids from the other day. Neither of them looked like they'd slept.

"Miss Harvelle. Mr Winchester." She said pleasantly. "Would you like me to call the dean or shall I escort you out myself?"

"Hear us out." Sam said in his most reasonable tone, hands open and empty, showing that he wasn't a threat to her. But the glint in the professor's eyes said she knew otherwise. Jo was more direct. She stepped forward and dropped a sheaf of papers on Grace's desk.

Grace put her glasses on. "What's this supposed to be?"

"Your police records." Jo said. "And your three brothers."

Professor Devlin gave a small smile. "So. You've found me out. What are you then, police? Did the hospital send you?" She looked up over the rims of her glasses, daring them to contradict her.

"We know who you are." Sam said.

Grace's smile widened "You have no idea."

Jo glanced at Sam. She could see that this woman's refusal to cooperate was beginning to throw him. It was time for her to take over.

"We saw the demon, Professor Devlin."

"I'm afraid what we all saw was a refraction of the light. Rare, but it happens."

Jo's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "You see Professor, we researched you. Your family. We know about the near misses and the murders. We know about the stalker. We _know _about the demon."

"You don't know the first thing." Grace said softly. Her hand twitched involuntary on her desk and Jo knew she's struck a nerve.

"'_I have you'._" She whispered. "It has you right where it wants you, doesn't it? It knows you can't run again. Your brothers tried to run and it caught them too. It strung them up and watched the life drain out of them. You're the last one left. And as soon as you're dead, it'll be free, and it'll start killing and it won't stop. It won't ever stop."

"ENOUGH!" Grace snapped, rising angrily to her feet. "I tried. I tried to protect you from it, tried to mask your scent, but now you know about it, it's going to kill you too."

Sam and Jo stepped back. There was shock on Sam's face, though shock at Professor Devlin's reaction or shock at Jo's interrogation technique, she couldn't quite tell.

The professor came around the desk, anger in every line. "What gives you the right," she snarled. "To blunder into my life, MY JOB, and throw my family in my face?" Sam flinched. Jo didn't spare him a glance.

"Because a lot of innocent people will die if we don't destroy this thing." She spat back. "We're trying to help you!"

"And what do you think I've been doing?" The reply was soft and smooth. "What do you think we all had been doing? Why do you think," her voice broke. "Why do you think they died like that?"

Silence. Sam finally asked a question that had been bugging him for a while now. "Are you a hunter?"

"A what?" She gave a tired laugh. "Me, I'm just trying to stay alive. I've dodged it all my life, barely keeping it at bay with simple little charms and spells. Spells that you word yourself, that mean more to you than script out of a textbook. And now I'm not going to run anymore. I'm going to fight, like my brothers. If I'm going to Hell, I'm taking it back down with me."

She was scared. But was going to stand and fight anyway. She may not think of herself as a hunter, but she had the spirit of one. "Please. Let us help you." Sam was anxious and becoming frantic, like the other times he was faced with loosing control of a situation.

"I know what I'm doing." The professor was not going to back down. She had resigned herself to dying, and it was tearing him apart inside. "You kids have no idea what you're messing with. You're going to get hurt. Killed, maybe. And if you're dead you can't fight. This time leave it be. Walk away, hunters. Don't look back."

"But I can't-"

"You can. There's always one that got away, Sam. This one is the one that got away. Listen to me. No, listen. You have to live. No matter what, _you_ have to live."

"How can you know for sure? How can you possibly know-?"

"You're a good boy, Sam. But you have to learn to trust again. Live again." The professor took off her glasses and polished them on the hem of her shirt. "I think you should leave now. It's a long way home."

Jo glanced at Sam for confirmation. He nodded his head slightly and she made her way to the door wordlessly. He looked back up at the professor. "You can't win."

"Never underestimate the opponent. The same works for both human and demon. You need to remember that. Listen to your instincts, and remember there is no such thing as a lost cause."

* * *

"It's a lost cause." He stared moodily down into his drink.

"No." His companion said, his breath coming out with a coating of alcohol. "You just went about it a bit wrong. A lot wrong. You're on the same bar, which is good, but my friend, you need to be one step ahead. Don't let 'em get the jump on you. If ya do, I ain't gonna be the one to tell Mother you screwed up."

"You're drunk."

"And you're stupid. But let's not quarrel over trivialities. So ya bombed first time 'round. That's cool. You been gone now for what, six years? You need time to get back into the game. Back into the swing of things. 'Sides, they can only kill you once."

The Trickster took a swig of his whisky and gazed thoughtfully at his young charge. "Least you smell better now. Trust me, that delightful demony whiff… knock the angels out of heaven."

Dean Winchester glared at him coldly. Once upon a time, the kid woulda staked him right there and then just on principle. Now he had no principles. No morality. No compassion. He was gone. Just a super-powered shadow.

No humour… the Trickster missed that bit. The old Dean woulda got some of his finer observations on the current state of affairs, and could appreciate the wit of the Trickster's better-crafted stunts. Now he was just cartin' a kid about who was no better than the thing that pulled him outta Hell. Empty.

It scared him a bit. Okay, it scared him a lot. _She _was desperate enough to make a deal with one of the Underdemons to get her hands on this soul, which meant she was pretty damned serious about whatever she was plannin'.

And whatever it was couldn't be good, neither for the human locusts that swarmed across the face of the planet in droves, or the leeches that manifested themselves underneath it.

However, the Trickster was wily enough not to bring any of this to Mother. She was prone to temper tantrums.

The Trickster went back to studying the profile of his cohort. Thinner, stronger. Six years in Hell, and each day showed in the lines of his face. The old Dean would not have surrendered to any demon no matter what was at stake. Which made the Trickster wonder-

What was he planning?


	7. Witch

Grace walked out of her flat. She didn't look back. She got into her car and drove, far away from Stanford, far away from and city or town or people. It would come for her.

_This is for my brothers._

After all this time, she still didn't know why it cursed their family. Why it screamed at night beneath her window. Why she was the only one who could see it.

Until those two kids came. She saw the looks on their faces that night. She saw the terror. And she knew that the same terrible, wrenching pain and loss had touched their lives too. The same magic.

Her family. The magic had touched all of them, marking them out to the others, the wraiths and the ghouls and the others that did not approve of mortals somehow taking a slice of their domain.

For Grace Devlin was a witch.

Ever since she was small, she found she could do things. Objects would suddenly appear when she wanted them; things would be moved from one side of the house to the other without anyone seeing who moved them, and she could always get her own back on her brothers if they teased her. As a small child, being able to do these things was a gift, her own special secret.

But as she grew older she began to see the other side. Animals would shy away from her, all but the mangy black cat that used to live on the corner of her street. She had moods swings where she would have gladly clubbed her English teacher around the head, and if she really thought about something, _really _thought it, like revenge, it would burst out of her like a bubble, trapping the victim and making them prey to her curse.

She did it once, to a girl at school. A preppy cheerleader type. The girl never walked again, and although no one ever traced it back to Grace, it terrified her. This power. Years passed and she tried so hard to escape the call of the supernatural, burying that part deep within her. Hoping that refusing to acknowledge it would make the problem disappear.

But it didn't disappear, and in time she became thankful that it hadn't. For all her brave words, she didn't want to die. Not really. But that still didn't think that being what she was really gave her much of an edge, especially when her brothers had been stronger and better trained, and they died anyway.

_The wraith is a being of power, controlled by a greater spirit to do the creature's will. These creatures are shadows, floating amongst our realm with no purpose but that of their masters. They feed on humans, their emotions and their own strength, and without these they would cease to exist._

That was why it was so hard to fight. How did you cease being human?

She stopped the car at the intersection. A crossroads. A centre of supernatural power. She got out of her car and stepped into the dust.

_The condemned used to be hung at the crossroads, so their spirits could not come back to be a plague on the living._

And now she was going to join them. Grace knelt down and drew a semicircle in the dust, and flared her fingers. "Secure." She said simply.

The circle did not change. It did not glow or spark, but Grace could feel it. The familiar tinglyness in her fingers, the way it warmed her from the inside. As the magic slowly filled up the circle, she breathed out a sigh of relief.

"You can't stay in there forever." The creature stepped out of the darkness, long leathery wings trailing in the dirt behind it. With it's long, birdlike jaws, you almost expected it to not be able to speak, but it did so, remarkably well. "You have to come out sooner or later."

As Grace watched, it began to shrivel and curl in upon itself, until finally emerged a woman. To add insult to injury, the demon preferred to assume the face of her mother. "Human. Finally you turn to face me. You have magic, but you will still perish as they all did. Compared to me, you are the equivalent of a street magician."

"Then come over here and cross this line, and I'll pull a rabbit out of your arse." Grace snarled.

"So much fire. So much hate. You would make a good wraith, and as one of the legion, you would decimate those that thought to resist you." She smiled, and although the smile was empty, it was so… human.

"Tell me why. Just tell me why." _Why did they have to die? And in such ways. Why have you been watching me since the day I was born?Why did you chase me? Me and my brothers. Why? Why? Why?_

"You tell me why." The creature said slyly. "Tell me the story that your father gave on his deathbed."

_Tell her. _It pulled at Grace like a rope. She tried to resist, but eventually the story was dragged out of her. "He said that our family were once the bodyguards of the Kavanaghs of Ireland, a clan of great power and infuence among the Celts. A sorcerer from our family in a great show of strength bound one of the farie women to him to do his bidding. He died refusing to release her."

The sprite smiled. "My, what a nice story. Carefully reproportioning the blame so none are truly at fault. And the ones that are at fault have long been in their graves. Tell me, do you truly believe that fantastic tale of sorcerers and faries?"

It was as if she was reading Grace's mind like a book. "No." Grace said grudgingly. The tale had always seemed too fanciful. Too spotless. Making the generations of Devilns into martyrs.

"No, dear child. The true account is far less blameless." She ran a hand down the front of her grey smoch. "And far more recent. Grace Devlin, I am sixty five human years old."

Grace's mind went blank. If it were telling the truth, she was three years older than her father would have been, had he lived through that last hunt…

"It was your dad. Dear old Connor Devlin." She pointed to herself. "Did you know that I was the last thing your uncle Liam hunted? Mine was the last face he saw, before I tore out his heart. Liam and Connor, the Devlin boys. Never saw one without the other. Always there to back each other up. Always there for each other.

"I was twenty one human years old at the time. You see, I'm still a young demon. Pitifully young in _our _sense of ageing. I wanted to be a warrior. Fight the surge of scum that was appearing. Take back the lands that were rightfully ours." Her eyes shone with a zealous light. "And so I was sent to the Overworld to prove myself.

"_Your first real hunt above ground, you shall bring back the bodies of the brother hunters plaguing the Underdemons along the coast. _And the Elders showed me their faces. Red haired and green eyed, the pair of them. They would be hard to miss. And so I went.

"Your family was easy to find. They weren't even trying to hide. By Connor's reckoning, he had done nothing wrong so there was no reason for him to fell ashamed. He always gave you kids the best of everything, although he tried his best to shield you from the truth.

"Then one day I caught them. They were out hunting a Wen-something-or-other, another of the Underdemons. Liam was looking the other way, bless him, and was easily dispatched. Dear old dad was tougher than I expected, though, and as he lay bleeding, he did something I never expected a mortal to do.

"What I never counted on was that the person I was to kill might be gifted. For the sake of the people he risked all for, he bound me tightly to the power in his family. To you. And now you're the only one left. How sad. You know, I quite like the human stories that speak about the last stand. Funny little humans and your funny little traditions."

Grace narrowed her eyes. "If you've read about last stands, then you should know about another tradition we humans are fond of."

The demon narrowed her eyes. "What?" She snapped.

Grace grinned. "The cavalry."

The bolt shot through the air and sank into the banshee's back, lining up neatly underneath the shoulder blade. She hissed and spun around to face her attackers as they leapt deftly from the bushes, crossbows in hand.

"I always knew." Grace said. "You see, young demons are like young children. They like to pretend they're smart, but both are easily fooled." She pointed to the line on the ground. It was then that the banshee noticed it curved the wrong way.

Grace bent, and removed several twigs. The line continued underneath them, making one large, continuous circle. The banshee spun around, the cockiness gone from her face. "No!" She screamed. "A human girl cannot outwit me!"

"Hey, watch what you're saying about human girls." Jo puffed.

It shrieked again, shedding its human guise. Flapping its wings, it rose into the sky.

"Um, I don't mean to be a downer or anything, but can't it fly away?" Sam asked.

"No." Grace replied cheerfully. "It is bound to me, and as long as I will it to remain there, it will." But her eyes were over bright with the strain of maintaining the spell, and soon it would shatter. Jo trained her crossbow on the creature. Glancing at her, Grace suddenly had a further idea. "Jo, give me your watch."

"My watch? What for?"

"Just give it to me."

Jo tossed over the analogue watch she bought for four dollars back in Minnesota. "It's a cheap bit of produce, so I hope it'll do."

Grace peered at the glass face and the ticking hands. She smiled. "It'll be fine." Suddenly she dropped the watch back into the circle with the enraged beast. Sam and Jo watched her actions curiously.

"I now bound you anew." She said. It was a spell worded in her way, but typical phrases snuck in. "From this day you will not be permitted to walk the Overground or the Underground. You will not communicate with any of your kind. You will be restricted and imprisoned, under the glass ceiling." She paused for breath. "Secure."

There was a bright light. Sam and Jo had to look away. The creature screamed one more time, and then all was silent.

Jo looked was the first to look up. "It's gone. Where is it? What did you do with it?"

Grace stepped into the middle of the circle and bent to pick something up. It was Jo's watch, only now the face was fogged with black. Every so often it would move, shifting forward and back. It could not twist itself underneath the smooth glass surface.

"I bound it on its bindings. I was so focused on destroying it that I didn't consider anything else. Now I have all the time in the world to discover how I can destroy it once and for all, no pun intended."

Jo pointed. "It's in there? How the hell did you get it in there?"

Grace smiled. "Magic."

"What are you going to do with it now?"

"Well, it's your watch. You can have it back, if you like." Grace offered it back to her. Jo held up a hand.

"Ta, Professor. But I think I'll pass."

"So your dad really was a hunter?" Sam asked. "How come you…"

"Never became one too? It was too dangerous, wasn't it?"


	8. Alive

He didn't have any dreams that night, when he finally crawled into bed. Only a feeling of a job well done clouded his consciousness as he fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.

He woke the next morning with the sun gleaming through the window and hitting the rifle that was leaning against the door, casting reflections around the room. He made to stretch out, and then he realised that there was someone sitting cross-legged at the end of his bed, the light playing in her hair making it shine like a halo.

"Jo." He said. "I never placed you as the early riser." Her expression didn't twitch as she contemplated him silently, as if he was another creature to be catalogued and filed away in the Harvelle Archive of Irrelevant Information. "Do I have something growing on my face?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I've got it." She suddenly announced triumphantly, springing to her feet, hands on her hips.

"Well, if you've got it, I've got it too." Sam rolled over and buried his head under his pillow.

That was when Jo threw a shoe at him.

"Hey!"

"You're a mess, Sam Winchester. The old Sam would be ashamed. Look at you, you'd rather be lolling around in bed than out there discovering something, cracking a code, saving the damsel in distress, or any of the other stuff you used to do. You're screwed up, and you're not trying to make it any better for yourself, either. This isn't like you."

"How would you know what I'm like?" Sam grumbled. At any other time, it may have been funny, even ironic; here he was in bed getting preached to by a blonde in boxers and a singlet. The kind of situation that his brother would never let him live down.

Jo saw the sudden crease of sadness in Sam's brow and threw the other shoe at him. "Damn it, Sam. Stop using Dean as an excuse!"

That time he sat up bolt upright, her words like an electric wire against his skin. _"What did you say?" _

"You heard what I said." Jo said in an even voice. "Each time we've met up in six years, it's been 'Dean said…' 'I can't because Dean…' 'I promised Dean…' You're the one telling me he's well and truly done for, but it's you that's not doing the letting go."

"But-"

"It looks like him, but it isn't." She said in a flat voice. "It's just another thing we have to hunt, and it's conveniently chosen to wear Dean's face hoping to soften you up, like the banshee did to the professor yesterday. Because you're afraid he might still be in there, it knows you're not going to hit hard enough, you're going to hold back. He's not coming back. Not this time."

Her voice grew softer. "Sam, I _knew _the old you. I went on my first proper hunt with the old you. The moral one. The courageous one. You've become a robot, eating and drinking and sleeping enough only to stay alive. All because of Dean. Do you really think he would have wanted you to start slowly killing yourself?"

Sam pulled the covers up again. He stared at his hands. They were coarse and scarred and wiry. Not what they used to be. "Maybe not." He said slowly. "But you're not always going to be there to tell me to pull myself together either." There was a slight bitter edge to his voice, as if he knew something she didn't.

"So you're sure of that." Jo raised an eyebrow. "Dear Sammy, who's so certain of everything. You have no idea how maddening it is to be with a guy who you swear knows more about tomorrow than you do, but I do know that what you see isn't always what's going to happen."

She stood and gathered her clothes. Turning, she tossed Sam his jeans. "Get up. Shower. Shave. Eat something. Then we can say goodbye to the professor. I'm not going anywhere yet, Sam, so you better get used to being told to pull yourself together."

Sam finally smiled at her retreating back. "You know you're turning into your mother, right?"

"There are worse things I could be turning into."

* * *

Saturday morning. Sam was about to knock on the office door when the professor called out. 

"Sam. Jo. Come in." Professor Grace Devlin was leaning against her desk seemingly waiting for them to arrive. Sam had though that this was a woman not be messed with before, but now there was power in every line. There was something to be said about not denying who you were.

"How do you do that?" Jo asked. "How do you know whoever's there all the time?"

"Handy, no?" Grace said. "I always could. It'd drive my brothers mad. No matter what they were dressed up as or pretended to be, I could always see right through them. The more a person tries to hide, the more they stand out."

Sam nodded, understanding. "The more you block out the less of a person you become."

Jo narrowed her eyes. "This isn't turning into one of those 'you can lead a horse to water' moments, is it? _You have to be lost to get to a place that can't be found." _

Professor Devlin shook her head. "You'll get it one day, Joanna. And then you'll understand."

Jo blinked. "Understand what?"

"Anyway." Sam stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned at the professor, earning a stern glare. "We… we're packed, gonna hit the road again while it's still light. Just thought we'd stop by and say goodbye."

"For now." The professor said. "No goodbye is ever final."

And so the duo gathered what humble possessions they had, and blew out the gates of Leland Stanford Junior University, the Impala almost purring in delight at being once again out on the open road.

The windows were rolled down and the dry breeze ruffled their hair. Sam was once again in the driver's seat, Jo riding shotgun. "Did the Prof give you any divine insight, then? Any parting wisdom that will unlock the door to whatever?"

Sam smiled, and for the first time in a long time, there were no ghosts lurking behind his eyes. "Only what you said earlier. That I'm a mess and I need to sort myself out before I do something I'll regret."

"Oh, and Sam's going to take her advice because the big, powerful witch lady might turn him into a toad. Well, all great minds think alike, I guess. I might've even done the same thing if I could. Are you going to take our word for it?"

"I'm still thinking about it." He replied.

"Am I going to get an answer?"

"Hang around long enough and you just might."

Jo sank back into the leather interior, an arm along the back of the seat. She grinned. "There's nothing I like more than an open invitation." Reaching forward, she turned up the radio.

_'I'm still alive_

_Must've been a miracle _

_It's been a hell of a ride _

_Destination still unknown _

_It's a fact of life_

_If you make one wrong move with a gun to your head_

_You better walk the line_

_Or you'll be left for dead.' _

He stood over the cowering Underdemon, blood on his hands. Blood. He always had blood on his hands in some form or another, metaphorically or all too literally. Especially now he had been called into service for Mother.

"Now." He said, withdrawing his hand from the Underdemon's chest. The body flopped lifelessly to the ground. "Let that serve as a lesson to you all as to what happens to such a one who dares to stand against Mother."

The Underdemons goggled up at him. In the shadows, the green-eyed demon watched as his charge commanded the attention of each lesser creature in the cavern. Granted, he knew how to work a crowd. He knew the ways of the darkness.

And Cerberus the Demon wondered if Mother truly knew what she was doing, releasing the damned from Hell.

But still, Mother knows best.

_'I'm a runaway train on a broken track_

_I'm the ticker on the bomb that you can't turn back _

_This time, that's right, I got away with it all and I'm still alive _

_Let the end of the world come tumbling down _

_I'll be the last man standing on the ground _

_As the dust clears look in my eyes _

_I'm still alive.' _

_

* * *

_

The lyrics to MeatLoaf's 'Alive' aren't mine. Neither are Sam, Jo, Dean, or the Impala. I can claim ownership on Deacon Ridgeway, Carmen Lorenzo, Professor Devlin, the Green-eyed Demon, assorted victims and the banshee.

And so ends story arc one of 'Cursed'. Thanks to all that reviewed and all that read it without reviewing.

Sequel is _Ghosts: _

Sam has been shot. Jo is caught in the middle of a bank robbery. The culprit has already been dead for two weeks and people are mysteriously dying throughout the city.

But that's not the worst of it. When a demon begins to enter Sam's dreams, an old enemy from the brothers' past resurfaces to make a bargain with the hunters.

Help him and he would tell them how to get to Dean.


End file.
